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Space Combat Revamp Discussion
grazyc2
Member Posts: 1,988 Arc User
Space Combat Revamp, how and what, if they would ask you as player they want to revamp space combat and ask you what would you like to see changed what would you say ?
What would you want to see changed in Space Combat ??
What would you want to see changed in Space Combat ??
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
Post edited by grazyc2#7847 on
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None. This game is too set in its way gone to make the sweeping changes needed to transform this into something other than what it is.
But if pressed id say this:
Take bridge commander, build from there. Easy. For detailed counseling, im up for hire.
Or get a monkey. Even that one will do better than cryptic did with STO as far as combat design goes.
:rolleyes:
Funny, we had to lobby for years to get cryptic to aknowledge the fact that their idea of controls was stupid.
They gave us 2 guns on autofire and the rest had to be spacebared.
Combined with the fact that this ****ty champions online regurgitated GUI is unable to properly execute commands made the whole mess even worse. To this day, this interface gobbles up power activations and plain old does not fire guns when they should fire.
Excessive Macro binding is the one thing that makes this remotely usable in a competitive environment such as PvP.
Not to mention that Autofire and macros are not even related. The one (autofire) is the command to the game to use the weapon for as long as the activation requirements are met (weapons being online, in range and with target in reach), and the game cannot even do that properly, the other is the binding of several commands onto one button, in the hope that the button actually works this time. Trying to activate a series of power in the "normal" Gui is like opening a lockbox.... could potentially be rewarding but usually isn't.
So no. Your "improvement" is something that we actively lobbied to get removed. There is no fun in activating weapons eery few seconds.
I know it'd be a pain to incorporate it, but be sweet as hell.
Our Battles
1. I'd like to see combat to slow down.
No 1-hit kills. no 1-hit deaths. No instant-full-healing.
Instead of fighting 5 groups of 10 ships each I'd rather fight one strong enemy. Or at least fewer. Beating the enemy should feel a little meaningful instead of that mass slaughtering.
2. Less Explosion.
"Beating" an enemy should not always mean "Blowing him up". Same for dying btw.
Battle outcomes should be different. Sometimes the enemy surrendering, sometimes retreating, and only sometimes actually blowing up.
I would start a new game. Then I would go and find a massive fight involving capships, frigates and fighters. I would point at the screen and simply say...
Give me that.
At that point you are not involved in the combat and thus it has no intrinsic value to you.
I would like to see some elements from BC as well. Like having shields for the top and bottom, actual attack patterns where when you click the pattern it goes thru a preprogrammed evasive or attack pattern. I'd like the ships speed and turn rates be more closer to how you see them on the show... cruisers are slow but sometimes you see them have a decent turn rate on the show.
Start with dedicated defense/healing build = 90% of a dedicated offense build, so that there's no "zombie" situations where a tank can't be killed.
Then allocate the offensive / defensive capabilities into ranges, for example, an escort gets 100% damage cap but only reaches 50% defensive cap without taking significant dings to offensive capability. Science ships "baseline" at 75%/75%, and Cruisers are minimal offense ships (50% cap) but can attain that mythical 100% defense. Also, there should be "minimum" floors, say a 20% window - so a "defensive" escort gets 80% max damage and 70% max defense, an offensive Sci gets 85% offense - 65% defense, and a "killer" cruiser = 70% - 85%. Because of the "90% healing vs damage cap", said "killer" Cruiser > "defender" Escort...
Remember, skills come into play too, obviously we'll base max damage around escorts with 3xDHC, 1x Torp, 3xturrets, CRF III, TS III, AP:B and AP:O in the second LtCmdr & a Lt Slot with full tactical buff loadout type deal, while a Sci running "full sensor scan / reasonably attained sensor analysis" + Tyken's III + GW I + ES II + Tractor Beam II = 75% of max (a lot of it from the weakened shield energy levels + GW damage + Now inescapable tractor (due to power drains) trapping in middle of well...
Same with Cruisers / Engineers and their plethora of defenses/healing being used to set the defense cap, and again, pile of science defenses/heals ~ 75% of that defense/heal...
Captain skill offenses/defenses should be equal. Captain X attacks you with a 15 point power drain enhanced to 21 due to 6 points in flow caps. Captain Y needs 6 points in insulators to reduce the drain to the "base" of 15... Therefore, "defensive" consoles besides the engineering-armor ones could suddenly become necessary, especially in Science...
Of course, such a radical rebalance would mean that possibly every single number in the game is subject to change, however, once said numbers are "set", and future abilities set within these ranges (aka "no more power creep"), then we might have a useful for both PvP and PvE game...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
And you are free to turn off autofire so that you can have more fun. What you are suggesting is making everyone have to play without autofire even if they don't want to. Right now, you can turn off/on autofire and play either way. No-one loses! (A rarity in this game.) Why would you want less options for people?
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
I don't expect space combat to change. It's too much of a numbers game for us to get the Bridge Commander experience from, though if there ever is an 'STO 2' or the like in the distant future, rendering it 'Bridge Commander Online' might not be that bad of an idea...
But right, to the topic: I want to be able to do a full axial rotation in any direction. The ability to go UP without doing a lazy spiral would be much appreciated, and make shuttle combat that much more interesting. Not to mention add more variety to possible encounters.
This is something I kind of miss from Starfleet Command.
Why do people want to fight from the bridge? So they can feel more immersed in what they are doing. The more you do in the combat the more immersed you feel in it - rather then just watching it happen.
There is no immersion in space combat because most players are not really involved in it from level 1 to level 50. They are simply watching it happen.
Sooooo..... "stop having fun the wrong way"?
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
I dunno, I found the low tier ships to be much more involving than the high tier ships due to each individual shot being more important at low level. The volume of firepower and abilities being spammed at high level is what makes being more involved with a ship's functions somewhat counter-intuitive. There's just too much going on to micromanage it, in my opinion.
Hey... wait, isn't that why we have other officers on the bridge... to do stuff so the captain doesn't have to? Can we have 'autofire' on boff powers so they can do their job?
"Keep cycling emergency power to shields, so we don't die! Also, assign repair crews as needed!"
"Durr, when do you want me to do that?"
"...as long as we're at red alert?"
"I dunno if I have the attention span or situational awareness to keep up with that captain."
But, if i could ask, i will love to see a playstyle like star trek starfleet command II with a better management of the shield facing (the best star trek combat game ive ever played, for real).
A camera from the bridge will be amazing, allowing to even interact with your boffs instead of clicking on their skills lol. But that will be as well impossible for cryptic lol. If cryptic cant even make a decent ship interior, more realistic, how you guys pretend they make a bridge camera view lol?.
Oh well, it's fun enough.
(Full 360-degree movement, slower combat, take more damage, deal less damage)
2. I'd like to see the subsystem management and outfitting of Starfleet Command
(Every weapon equipped needed to be placed specifically to cover a certain area/arc)
Both BC and SFC did these things exceptionally well. Why is it limited to a SP/MP game for these things to work? Why is it inot possible to implement in an MMO?
I echo the above sentiments, in making a battle more "meaningful". As a Starfleet Captain, I should not be put in a position where I order the senseless slaughter of dozens/hundreds of enemy ships. In most cases in Star Trek, Diplomacy is the first choice, with Combat being the last choice. Yet in STO, there are no means of negotiating with a potential enemy, no way of forcing a surrender, and when a ship has taken too much damage, it is ALWAYS destroyed. Ships no longer disabled post-Nemesis?
I know the Federation is (supposed to) at a state of war with the Klingon Empire. But as brutal as the Klingons can be, i'd wager they would occasionally want to take prisoners for interrogation, rather than slaughter every last human in sight (or any other Federation member species). You can't take prisoners, if you are always forced to destroy ships. No AI coder available to make the AI "occasionally surrender" based on various variables?
- real physics. Examples: ships that are killed don't stop moving in space.... asteroids and clutter should be in motion as well, and collisions with large objects should do some damage. There are no sounds in space.
- less one-shot NPC crits, better NPC AI
- less warp-in must do 180 turn mechanics. Not everyone has a high turn rate, and that can get old. Or, if it is so easy to do this, let us warp behind mobs once per 60, maybe 90, seconds.
So acting like a real Star Trek captain- that is, sitting in a chair yelling "shoot them"- is more immersive than...
-facepalm-
Bring on the consoles and Kinect support, and happy that one will obviously be.
Hammer->Head->Nail
I want to see combat slowed a bit and make facings far more relevant. This means: slower turn rates, narrowed firing arcs, 4 weapon facings. 'Escorts' would be focused on forward attack and using strafing runs(due to reduced turn rate, but high escape velocity/forward thrust potential), but they would have reduced side and aft coverage which makes them vulnerable after an attack run. Cruisers would have good coverage at all angles, but lack the punching power of an escort. Science ships would be more specialized towards 'space magic' and general supportive abilities.
Furthermore, I think it's silly how many abilities in the game can pretty much full heal you and are on such a short cooldown. I blame this first and foremost for the 1-shot kill mechanic that's common in the elite difficulties. It's very difficult to actually wear ships down in this game through attrition. I'd like to see Emergency Power to Shields be more of a resistance hardener and slow regen instead of being a massive shield heal - something that slows the damage, rather than instantly 'fixes' it. However, again, this isn't going to happen because it would require re-balancing all the encounters in the game.
Oh and a better turn rate for cruisers because they're pretty much un-usable at the moment.
They've managed this a little bit in story mode, but more would certainly be nice and go some way to making the game feel more trek.
I agree on the first part, around mid-level it's at its best I thought, though they can't really fix that. Autofire on BOFF powers aint a bad idea, although maybe they should limit it to things like Science Team?
Whilst I'm at it, a little off topic but related to BOFFs. Why the hell can't we turn autofire off on BOFF powers in Ground?! I'm sick of exposing someone and deciding to get my Security officer to use lunge only to find he's dropkicked someone seconds earlier and now has to wait till he doesn't have a sore bum anymore.
And finally, they should add this
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Picard_Maneuver
More power consumption similar to weapon consumption. Shields consume power to repair damage, Aux abilities consume power per tick, etc.
More reliance on crew. Crew allocation should determine the ship's capabilities, both for damage and repairs.
Damage pace slowed a bit, and repair rate slowed too. If you need repairs, you should need an engineering squad available to do it. If your teammate wants to heal, let him beam over one of his engi squads. Incapacitate the crew and attrition rate increase.
Large ships should have more power than small ships. Small ships are already able to control the engagement, with very little risk (cloak and run on damage), there should be a lot more risk to attacking a big ship. Things like, capital ships should have dual power cores and more hard-points, that kind of thing.
Diminishing return on various kinds of stacking (skill points, damage bonuses, repair bonuses, etc).
Limit activated abilities to weapons and (say) 5 console/set/rep abilities. Make people choose them.
You seem to have a very skewed understanding of what immersion and involvement really mean.
Neither of those include "pressing the same button over and over" in their description.
You would have HAD a point if the combat would be like this:
Player ressources are limited, the ship has such and such amount of global power pool and such and such amount of power charge (the power it produces per "tick"). Its up to the player to divide it to the systems (engines, shields, aux, weapons just for example).
The Setting the player uses determine the SIZE of the power pool each "system" has available (the rate in which power is charged is a function of equipped items like warpcore and consoles and unrelated to the pool division).
If your ship had 10000 power and you would divide it evenly, each pool would have 2500 power.
From those pools, boff powers are "paid for", each boff power taking power from the associates pool. Engi powers drawn on engines, aux and shields. Science on aux and shields. Weapons and tac draw on engines and weapon pool.
Its rather easy: a power drawn from the pool related to what the power does: Pattern omega would draw from3 pools, since it combines movement, buffing and damage dealing.
etc.
You could even add CREW as a separate additional "ressource".
Your idea would only have merit if the combat and ship system would actually require the player to put thought into what he spends his limited resources on. That would be gameplay, heck even immersive and engaging gameplay.
However, as it stands, STO's combat is too simplistic yet clumsy to create immersion. Its just a tedious bashing of keys, and having to bash more keys faster does not make it good.
Heck, eve online has more complex and engaging combat than STO, just go.. and take a few hints.... i'm not saying make a carbon copy.... but some sort of resource management would do STO good.
Hey, I like that idea. Remove power levels away from performance, and tie it to Bridge Officer abilities as a resource of sorts.
With that, it would solve the issue of science ships being crippled by having to run full power to weapons just to use energy weapons. Most of them have fewer tactical bridge seats, so it would be natural for them to channel more power into aux - where it is consumed on science abilities.
It would probably make drain builds a more interesting threat as well, because they'll be directly attacking the ability to use abilities..
Additionally, it would be a more friendly mechanic to newbies than the current system. Probably one of the most common pieces of advice I find myself giving new players is to make sure they max out their weapon power. With this kind of system.. power management would be a more advanced subject new players can ease into once they're comfortable with the basics.
From what I read from most of you is better physics and AI ?
Better Physics is where you fly true an asteroid belt where you have combat but have to watch out or you can get be heavy damage from asteroids like games as ST Academy or STBC .
Or where you can lock on to an enemy and take him to an asteroid and smash it to an asteroid or take a tractor beam grab the enemy and fly around it that the other person can't really take a clear shot... as seen with Worf in DS9.
But also lesser enemy's but smarter one that really bites back !!!
Also a system like klingons would use to beam over kill the captain and the NPC would flee....
For the fed disable the enemy and jail the survivors...
But how far is Cryptic want to go in this and what is possible with the engine they are using and what is beyond their capabilities ?
And then the AI system !!!
Lesser ships but a lot better and slower like the movie or TV where a FED ship fire 1 beam and can do pretty much damage instead of firing all 6 beams every second ....
and do the same damage... Better beams and cannons so you can tank better and from what I read no instant heal like most of the cases happen.
Also more profession from bridge officers because if you watch most series they could do more than one job at the time ... But also if you are on the losing side you can flee the combat into an asteroid field try to make repairs.
As last I would like to mention lesser build stats and more solid more real also I agree to see the battle from the bridge it would be indeed more real.
If they could do this intergrade something like cockpit view I would love but I think this is wishing for gold what won't come...
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
Indeed, not a fan of using that myself, and hardly ever do. In fact, the only place I do is setting it temporarily in trenches during breach elite along wiith FAW, any place else, and I tend to want to select my targets more carefully and my shots. In fact FAW is something that upsets me in Breech elite, I can always tell when someone uses it in the second to last room because thei'r ship starts firing at the dummy generator.
If you want to turn off autofire then go ahead and turn it off. Nothing is stopping you from not using it. Why, however, do you wish to turn MY autofire off? Why do you want to impose your preferred playstyle on others?
What makes some people want to control how other people play a video game?
You have your way of controlling a game, while I have mine. Why should your UI preference take precedence over mine? This is an especially relevant question since you can have your style without taking mine away.
I never understood what it is about MMOs that makes some people demand absolute control over what other people do.
Think about this, youre maneuvering a ship around pushing buttons. What real world vehicle does this? Lets man up and admit Star Trek got this wrong. Its not the end of the universe. So a Joystick is required to maneuver a vehicle. The current joystick support needs a lot of love. Even one of the movies shows them going to manual control and using a joystick.
Now that we can maneuver, lets talk views. Player to target view, the most important view for conveying to the user their relationship to the enemy, and where other objects are around you. At its most basic, player to target view is draw a line from the enemy to your ship and extend a bit. That is where the camera should be. Allow the user to zoom in and out along this line and set the any offset for their own personal taste.
Now that we can control the ship, and view whats going on around us, lets talk moment of inertia (MOI). These 3 simple words (and the math behind them) are what makes or breaks the users suspension of belief while simulating a vehicle. When modeling many vehicles, modeling MOI gives each its own unique personality. Once you do the math, it really easy to do. Even a simple class 1 analysis can give you reasonable MOIs for each ship. Each ship will then have its very own unique roll, pitch and yaw. (How do I know? Before retiring I did vehicle flight dynamics for my day job ).
From a gamer perspective, to me, Sector Space is just way too tiny. I feel like Im on a little tiny board game map. With the current ships speeds across the map it should be at least 10 times bigger and take 10 times longer to get there. It takes longer to travel several miles to cross a zone in World of ******** than to travel across hundreds of light years, from one end to the other in Star Trek Online.
Just my 2 cents worth.